Rosalie and Me
by phfina
Summary: A fan fiction authoress finds out how it would be to have Rosalie as a lover. Rosalie doesn't drink her blood at the end. Unfortunately. Warning: A 'phfina piece, so there's much angst and lemons. References to implied suicidal thoughts. 'Anti-'Mary Sue


**Summary: ** A fan fiction authoress finds out how it would be to have Rosalie as a lover. Rosalie doesn't drink her blood at the end. Unfortunately.

**Warning:** A 'phfina piece, so there's angst, sex and more angst. References to implied suicidal thoughts. I can't put that the character is Mary Sue because she's so blatantly Mary Sue that this gets into Charlie Kaufman _Adaptation _territory. This story is about a 'friend' of mine, I'm nothing like the character portrayed within, and this isn't a call for help, so don't read this story like that, okay?

Contains spoilers about directions "Spring Break" (the sequel to "Christmas Surprises") will take.

* * *

I was in bed with my friend, after a long day at work, after trying to write a few more words to my most recent story about a panther and her conquest. I knew the whole story; I knew exactly what to write, but I wasn't writing it, … why?

Because when Samantha takes Chris, I find myself here, in bed, again for the third time today, with my friend.

My friend doesn't have a name, just a model number: the Tantus G-spot vibrator, so I give him a name. Some people call him Barney, 'cause he's big and purple, I sometimes call him Monty, … but it's funny how often I call out another name when Monty gets 'bizzzzy.'

Sometimes I don't even call out her name, sometimes I just think it as I grunt-moan out my … my whatever.

And I was thinking that name, right now. I might have whispered it, too: _'Ah, Rosalie!'_

And that's when, scrunched up around the pillow I was grasping so hard, and making all wet, again, thrusting monty in and out as I came, that's when I felt something cold, hard, and smooth against my back.

I gasped, as powerful, irresistible arms pulled me together with my pillow into a honeysuckle and rose-scented marble wall.

"'Speak of the Devil,'" she sang wickedly, "'and she doth appear.' That's the line you have me say in the latest story you're writing, isn't it?"

"Oh, my God!" I cried out in shock. _This can't be happening,_ I thought, terrorized. _This can't be real._

"No, it's 'OMR,' isn't it, little girl?" Rosalie's voice was more beautiful, more delighted, more musical, more cruel and cold than I could have ever imagined, writing it.

"What?" she continued angrily into my silence. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? Here I am, coming back from a hunt, and out your opened window floats my name said only in a certain way that means a certain thing, and that, with your luscious scent …" Rosalie turned me onto my back, removed the pillow from my arms, and turned off monty, sliding him out of me, …

And place herself on top of me, pushing me down with her weight, firmly, into the bed.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" She stared at me hungrily, with her wanton, but golden, eyes, I was relieved to see.

"What do I smell like to you?" I couldn't help but wonder, as probably every girl wonders, wanting Rosalie to want her, as I've so wanted Rosalie to want me.

"Always intellectualizing, aren't you, little 'phfina?" She remonstrated me. "Always 'understanding.' As if that makes things 'safer,' right? Putting that distance between yourself and the rest of the world? 'Oh, I understand Rosalie's desire, now, so I don't have to feel any emotional attachment.' Isn't that right?"

I looked away from her critical, knowing eyes.

"Well, know this: I'm going to fuck you now. I'm going to fuck you so hard," as she said these words, I felt a little squirt trickle down from her pussy, right into mine, and I gasped as the cold-wetness going into me that instantly heated and tingled and _felt so good._ "And when I make you cum, little girl, I may put my teeth to your neck, and who knows what will happen then? Who knows if I'll bite down and drink and drink and drink as you die, but coming like you never came before? Who knows?"

"But Rosalie," I said frightened, "you don't do that. You never make mistakes."

"Who said anything about me making a mistake?" she asked ominously. And she smiled a smile that was absolutely chilling.

And she pressed her pussy against mine, harder.

"Does that hurt?" She demanded.

My voice was stuck in my throat. All I could do was shake my head, but I don't know if I was shaking it up and down, or side to side, or just shaking it.

She eased off, just a little bit, pressing me, still, very firmly into the bed.

"Better?" she asked.

Her stone-cold stone-smooth skin as it pressed against my pussy and tummy was like pure electricity. I whimpered.

"Good," she said pleased. "Now I'm going to fuck you until you come, little girl, and you better come good and hard, because it may be the last thing you ever do."

And I felt another squirt go from her into me. And again I gasped at the feeling my monty couldn't even begin to imitate.

"God!" she added, sighing with pleasure, "your pussy is just so fuckable, so wet, so warm, so open, so ready for my cum!"

Her words were driving me crazy with desire, but her (lack of) motion was driving me even more crazy. I squirmed, desperate for some friction, desperate for her.

Or I tried to squirm, but I couldn't move, I was pressed so hard into the bed, by her.

_"Please!" _I found myself begging, carried by desire.

"No, no," she scolded. "I said I was going to fuck you; I didn't say anything about you fucking me." Then she added commandingly, _"I_ am going to make _you_ cum, and you can't stop it from happening, and you can't hurry it up, either. _I_ am calling the shots, little girl, not you."

"But, …" I began, "but I'm on top."

That's how it's supposed to be, and I struggled helplessly against the immovable mountain that is Rosalie Lillian Hale.

"Yeah," she said, not agreeing, "you're on top, aren't you? You're always on top. Always in control. Things always go your way. How's that been working out for you?"

She stared at me, intensely. So intensely I had to look away.

"You've been on top all your life, haven't you?" She demanded. "And that's been just great, hasn't it, these last three years? You, on top of your pillow? At least your pillow lets you be on top, huh, without complaint or struggle?"

"Hhhother …" I began, "Other girls let me be on top …"

"Yes, they did, didn't they? But where did that get you? You _had_ a girlfriend once, and she let you be on top, what was her name?"

I looked away.

"Was it 'Julia'?" Rosalie asked, not asking.

I felt the tears fall from my eyes.

"She was just perfect for you, wasn't she?" Rosalie continued cruelly, "So sweet, so grounded, so smart and funny and warm, but then what happened to your sweet little fem, Ms. Top?"

"She …" I swallowed hard, "She didn't like girls anymore. She …"

"And how did you find that out, hm?"

"She … _oh! God! … _she came home with … _him … on a date!_ And they … and they …"

"… and he kissed her goodnight on the porch, didn't he?" Rosalie asked coldly.

I couldn't look at her. I swallowed a few times.

"And you took that _so well,"_ Rosalie continued, "little Miss Diplomat, didn't you?"

_"Fuck, Rosalie!"_ I shouted, "how the Hell was I supposed to take that?"

"How the Hell did you take that?" she demanded.

I looked away and whispered: "I didn't."

"That's right," Rosalie said, "you didn't, because she said what?"

"She said," but I couldn't continue for a moment, because of the tightness in my chest, "she said, 'do you want to talk about it?'"

"And you said …" Rosalie demanded.

I said sadly, "I said factually, 'There's nothing to talk about.' And I left, and moved back in with my mom that night."

"Yes, you did, even though Julia begged you not to, even though she said you shouldn't drive like that, in the state you were in, that you should just sleep on it first and then talk with her the next day, but did you hear a single word she said?"

Rosalie looked at me. I couldn't look at her.

"And you never talked with her again. With Julia. After how many months of being together? How many years of being friends and then more than friends, and then in one split second, nothing? Ever again?"

"But she …" I began weakly.

"Maybe," Rosalie interrupted me, "maybe she doesn't 'like' girls any more because maybe after she wasn't being a complete sub to you, maybe after she tried to be her sweet, friendly, nice self that wasn't _exactly_ how you wanted her to be, maybe, just maybe, you started in with your dad's passive-aggressive shit that you hate so much in him, and maybe your mom's witty little stinging comments coming from your spiteful little mouth hurt her more than she let on? Hm? Maybe that's why she didn't like girls any more, because a particular girl was suffocating her bit by bit, day after day, with her needy-clingy-codependency shit?"

"Yeah, great, Rosalie. I'm a shit," I said sadly. "Thank you for stating the obvious."

"Yes, you are," she said mercilessly. "And the sad thing about it is, she still tries to reach out to you through that tough-girl act you throw up for everybody. She still tries to include you in her life as a friend."

Rosalie looked up at the headboard.

"How long ago did you receive the wedding invitation?" she asked coolly.

She waited. And she waited.

"They've been married two years now." I whispered.

And they have a little baby girl named Annie. Julia sent me a picture postcard. Of them. All three of them. On Christmas. Every Christmas.

"And more than two years later, you still don't know how to respond. You still take out and look at the R.S.V.P. Your scent is fresh on the envelope. From this week."

"You still haven't moved on from her, have you?" Rosalie asked. "But she's moved on with her life, she hasn't put everything on hold for you, and you hate her so much for that at the same time you admire her and love her all the more for choosing to be herself."

"But you …" Rosalie said with disgust, "you're still stuck, still hurting, still the victim. The victim from the damage you've caused. Have you even dared to have a relationship with anyone at all since you broke your heart over Julia?"

"Yes, I have!" I said defensively.

"Oh, yeah?" Rosalie asked incredulously.

"Yes! There was Cate …" I said.

"Oh, yes, how can we forget athletic Cate of the big boobs and a life even more fucked up than yours?" Rosalie said scathingly. "You were so pleased when she took you to her twelve step meeting, weren't you? Proved to you people could be worse off that you. Well, at least she's trying to patch up her life, which is more than I can say for some people who like to wallow. And she was such a squirmer, always trying to dominate you with her body in bed and, failing that, her big mouth out of bed, but you are not to be dominated, Ms. Top of the sharp tongue, are you? How many times, again, did you come onto her squirming pussy as she struggled beneath you, snarling and pinching and biting like the wild cate she was?"

"Twenty-one times," I said regretfully.

"Blackjack!" Rosalie shouted with false cheerfulness. "You kept count, didn't you? 'I can come with another girl after Julia,' you told yourself, 'I can come a lot!' How come your voice didn't ring true, even to yourself?"

"But that wasn't a relationship, little 'phfina, little Violet as you have yourself called at the Starbucks, which you call 'sbux,' little _Melissa,"_ Rosalie said, displeasure coloring her voice. "Because you were gone from Connecticut after you finished your 'bachelor's degree' in two years and off to the safety of a big city like Washington D.C. where nobody knows you and you left that little wild cate behind, without one backward look, and all she can do is ask your mother occasionally about you, and plead, what?, that you come back?"

_"Congratulations!"_ Rosalie added sarcastically, "you managed to ruin _another_ wrecked girl's life _more,_ by playing your stupid little games."

"What do you mean 'another' wrecked girl's life? Julia's life wasn't wrecked …" I began, and winced, because I thought_ until I almost managed to wreck it._

"I wasn't talking about Julia's life, you dummy," Rosalie said, "I was talking about yours."

"What?" I asked.

"Why do you like girls … or that is, not like boys?"

"Rosalie," I warned, "don't go there."

"Yeah, 'don't go there,' because you sure haven't, not for almost ten years, is it? You were thirteen, weren't you, just like your Paige in your story, right? And what was his name? Jim? Jack? John?"

Rosalie smiled down at me.

"And it isn't rape if you invited him into your empty house, into your bedroom, on your bed, and let him take off your clothes, and didn't say no, right?"

"And after he popped your little cherry, oh, he had to go, didn't he? And did he ever talk to you again? But he sure talked to the other boys, didn't he? Another notch on his belt, that's _all_ you were, weren't you? And you told yourself you would never be lying down on a bed with somebody sticking their junk into you. Oh, no! _You'd_ be fucking _them_ from now on. You'd show them all, wouldn't you? 'Cause _you're _on _top_ now, aren't you?"

I was crying profusely now.

"So, what did you do with those sheets? Oh, yes, you were having your period then, weren't you? Perfect excuse for Mom. Well, lucky you, because what's-his-name didn't have a condom handy at the time. What would you have done if you weren't having your period when he _ugh-ugh_ and filled you with his cum in how long? under thirty seconds? Not like you, you skillful and accomplished lover, huh? How long does it take you to get off with monty? Thinking of me? A whole two minutes more? Wonderful. But what would you have done if he fucked you any other time?"

"Rosalie," I said, crying, _"I was thirteen."_

"So you were going to have an abortion, kill your own baby, because you dragged what's-his-name into your house to fuck you because Daddy left Mommy for another woman, oh, boo-hoo!"

I was wailing now.

"Yeah, hard life," Rosalie said sardonically. "You're off boys, and now you're off girls because _'oh! nobody loves fucked-up me!'_ So now you play it safe and write your little nice safe stories starring you where you get the girl and you have your nice safe fans that leave you warm and fuzzy reviews and nobody knows your name so everything all sweet and friendly."

"A couple of them know my name," I whispered.

"No, three of them do, little _Melissa,_ and now all of them do, … some even have your email, but when that happened, where did you run right to? And what did you do?"

I swallowed.

"You did just what you did when you took your big, bad brother, so much like Daddy, and you, so scared of both of them, to that dyke bar. You were so full of yourself. You thought you could make bb uncomfortable, but he turned the tables on you, didn't he? Mr. More-Roman-Catholic-than-the-Pope pushed you over to and talked to that girl you were eying, but instead of _just saying hello, that's all, _you ran right to the bathroom and did what?"

"You know already, Rosalie," I whispered.

"You did _what?"_ Rosalie demanded.

"I puked my guts out, and then I washed my mouth, and I snuck home."

"And so here we are," Rosalie said, "nice and safe, in your 'efficiency suite' with you, me, and your laptop on your bed. And now I'm going to fuck you, maybe to death, but that will be hard because it's hard to kill somebody whose life she's so thoroughly fucked up already, isn't it, Melissa?"

She looked at me.

"Isn't it?" She demanded again. "Yes, it is, and you know it. How many times a month do you think about killing yourself?"

I was crying again.

"No, I meant how many times in a week, right?" She continued relentlessly, "More than once a day, even? But you don't kill yourself, do you? Because you're not afraid of dying. Oh, no! You can handle death, no matter what bb tells you from his religion that you're afraid might be the real deal, after all. But you can handle Hell. You already are, with your empty, lonely life and your pointless 'Can I get you a coffee drink from the bar?' job. No, what you are afraid of is this: you're afraid of fucking up your suicide, too, like you've fucked up every single thing else in your life! You've been to the sites. You've seen how hard it is to kill yourself. And you're so afraid you'll find yourself, not dead, but very much alive on an ambulance ride to the hospital. And that's were it will all begin again, won't it? With the psychiatrists? With the panels of psychiatrists? And interns? Just like before. And they'll see how fucked up you really are, won't they? Again, that is. But this time they _will_ commit you, and you've seen _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,_ you know what happened to Alice, they are going to zap that fucked-up desire to kill yourself right out of your brain, and all you'll worry about after those many treatments is not when and where to go, because your brain will be so fried you'll be back in diapers, you big baby, but it'll be this: 'Hm. Chocolate or vanilla pudding. So hard to decide.'"

"So hard to kill somebody who is so very dead already," Rosalie sighed regretfully. "Twenty-one years old, your whole life ahead of you, and here we are, here _you_ are, alone tonight with your tears, again. With your imaginary vampire 'friend,' again, telling you things you already know."

"Thanks so much for sharing," I gasped out, trying to be sarcastic through my tears.

"Oh, we're not done, little honey bee, not by a long shot, the night is young and so are we." Here she reached down and captured a tear on her finger, bringing it up to her mouth. As she drank it in, she closed her eyes and hummed contentedly.

She opened her eyes, her golden-glowing orbs, and looked at me. "You want me to say, 'so sad!' don't you? And tickle you? And fuck you? And kill you? Don't you? Well, guess what: here we go."

I felt her spray a little bit more into me. "Three," she said.

I didn't know what she meant, but then I was beyond caring, because then she leaned into me, completely, her breasts rubbing against my breasts and she began to rub her pussy against mine with slow, firm, strong strokes.

"Oh, God!" I cried out, and I felt her hair against my face, and felt her cold, sweet breath right against my neck and shoulder.

_"Unh!_ Four," Rosalie said, and I felt another squirt into me. "God, Melissa, you fuck so good!"

And she continued to press against me, and to rub her whole body against mine, and tickle me with her hair in my face and her breath on my neck.

And then she began pumping with a purpose, harder and faster. Harder, and faster, and very, very demandingly.

"Oh, God! Rosalie, I'm gonna cum!" I cried in desperation. "I'm gonna cum!"

"Cum, Melissa!" she commanded, "Cum for me, you sweet little thing!"

And as I came, I realized that's how she thought of Chris when Samantha offered her to Rosalie.

But I came, girls, oh, did I cum!

And I felt Rosalie's teeth on my neck, and I screamed as I came.

I screamed: "Oh, bite me, Rose! Oh, bite me!"

And I felt Rosalie press down on me, hard, and I felt _her cumming_ and it flowing down into me.

And she licked my neck, and I felt her bite down …

… with her lips …

and she sighed: "Five."

"Oh, God!" I gasped, as I came down from the edge of death. "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

And Rosalie held me. On top of me, she held me.

Then she kissed my forehead, looked me in the eye, and said: "I just have to taste that mountain pine and spring water."

And I looked up at her in confusion, but I wasn't confused when she slid, snake-like, down my body and started eating me out like she was a refugee from the desert and my pussy was that mountain spring water she so craved.

"Oh, God!" I exclaimed, still tingling from the previous high and being catapulted to the next one. "Oh, Rose!"

Rosalie's lips were too busy for talking.

_"Please!" _ I begged, "let me taste you, too, oh, please!"

Rosalie did lift up her head at that. "Soixante-neuf? But of course!"

And she flipped around, caging my head between her legs, pressing her inverted stomach on top of my chest, and almost roughly reopened my own legs with her arms and buried her head in my pussy before I even knew what was happening.

I guess I was being too slow on the uptake, because Rosalie lifted her head and looked back around to me and commanded an imperious: "Eat me!"

Then returned to doing just that, with vigor, to me.

So I returned the favor. I placed my hands on her cold, smooth firm buttocks and lifted my head a little, and licked, and sucked.

And sucked, hard, and licked, and flicked, and licked with my tongue.

Rosalie snarled, "Suck me hard, little honey bee, _I'm cumming!"_

And with that she pressed my head to the bed, and came, and I sucked for all I was worth, sucking as much of that honeysuckle and rose heaven that I could.

But, girls, I tell you what: that Rosalie, she's quite the sprayer.

I sucked and swallowed and sucked and swallowed and sucked and swallowed, but still her cum dribbled out of my mouth. Still it sprayed all over my face, so I opened my mouth as wide as I could to catch as much of it as her pussy, floating above me now, was spraying down on me.

"Six," Rosalie stated. "But why are you withholding your honey, little bee? You all tired out? Well, then, we'll just have to help you."

I wondered how Rosalie was going to help me, but then I heard the familiar _bizzzt!_ of monty, and she slid him, gently, but firmly, right into my pussy, and I grunted in the surprise of it and the forcefulness of it, and then she started pumping, right over my spot.

_"Oh, fuck!"_ I exclaimed as Rosalie pumped monty and then starting sucking my clit, flicking it with her tongue for good measure.

"Oh, God! Rose, I'm gonna cum again, I'm gonna … I'm gonna …"

She lifted her head slightly. "That's right, baby, gimme your honey, sweetie, cum for me good and hard." And she pulled monty right out, and put her lips right over my vagina, and sucked.

And I came.

And she sucked.

_God!_ Did she suck! She sucked me so hard that I was afraid she was going to suck me … suck my blood right out of my pussy lips, and that made me come really, really hard.

And Rosalie, that greedy bitch, she sucked every last drop of my cum right out of my pussy, and then her tongue reached down into me and licked right in there for those drops that didn't get pulled out by her insistent sucking.

And as she licked and sucked me so hard, she sprayed my face again.

"Seven," she grunted, as I tried to suck at that heavenly scented river in flood that is Rosalie.

And then she said something that I already knew: "My venom when mixed with your saliva is a balm, did you know that?"

I did know that, but I didn't know why she said that.

…

Rosalie eventually pulled herself off me. She put the pillow back in my arms, pulled her hair back, and then, laying me on my side, snaked around behind me, encircling me with her arms and legs.

I'm glad she put the blanket over me first, I don't know how Bella can handle this position. Rosalie is just so cold, flesh to flesh … or flesh to cold marble stone, that is. I felt the cold of her, even through the blanket.

"Why didn't you bite me?" I asked plaintively.

Rosalie was quiet for a moment.

"It's so easy, isn't it? To run away from life. It so easy for me to bite, and to drink you dry, and for you to be bitten, and to die as I drain you. But do you know what's hard?"

I sighed. "Yes, Rosalie, I know what's hard."

But she wasn't to be deterred. She cleared her throat with annoyance and said: "What's hard is to live your life. To live the life you've been given, and not to run away from it with an 'Oh, bite me,' or to run away to the bathroom to vomit, or to run away to your mother's house, or to run away to college or a job in another part of the country, … but to live your life. To accept what you've done, and own up to it, and then do that thing that you're terrified of."

It was quiet. "Or not," she added, "you can still keep running away to your lonely bed and to your monty and your stupid little stories. Fun-fun, isn't it?"

"Rosalie, I _like_ writing, and some people like reading what I write. Is that bad?"

Rosalie answered right back: "It's bad if you use it to run away. It doesn't matter what you do, be it writing or frigging or serving coffee as a barista, it matters what you be while you're doing what you do. If you're happy, then that's fine."

She paused a beat.

"Are you happy?" she demanded.

After a moment she said, "Hm, yes," condescendingly.

"So I have go write happy-happy stories, is that what you're saying?" I demanded.

"I thought Mensans were supposed to be smart …" Rosalie said in a confused voice.

"Oh, God! I didn't expect this from you!" I complained.

I never told anyone I was in Mensa, because I always got the 'well, if you're in Mensa, why aren't you X' where X was rich or happy or not a barista or whatever. Particularly because I always wanted to snap back, 'well, I may not be rich (or whatever) _just like you, you fucking hypocrite,_ but _unlike you_ _I'm not stupid!'_

Rosalie, like every other stupid person in the world who waved the Mensans are failures flag, was undeterred. "Well, aren't you smart?"

"Yeah, okay, I'm smart!" I bit back.

"Well, then, so you know you can be happy, in the classic Greek sense, my little Ancient Greek lit girl, and still write sad stories and tragedies. Or did you not know that? Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote his _Gulag Archipelago, _after being exiled, and that was probably one of the grayest, saddest books ever written, and probably one of his happiest achievements, because what did it do for his homeland? What did it do for him?"

"But I don't write like him," I complained faintly.

"Then write like you do, smart girl!" Rosalie snapped back.

"Wow! Thanks for the advice," I said sarcastically, "'Do what you're already doing, but be happy about it.' That's just great."

Rosalie was silent.

After a while, I became a little bit scared that I had just insulted somebody who was trying to help me, and I felt: great, here I am acting like I act when people get too close to me.

But then, after a moment, Rosalie spoke. "Yes, that's what I'm saying. So if you're doing things and being unhappy about it, or if you are not doing something, and knowing if you did it, you would feel happy, well … then do or undo the thing you need to. Frigging off, alone, pretending your with a hot vampire that you can write whatever she says? Instead of being with a person who loves you? Whom you can't control? So, guess what? She does surprising things that delights you sometimes and she does surprising things that makes you cry, but guess what again? She's alive and you're alive and you're both happy together, doing more together, with each other than you both would being alone? And yes, she makes mistakes, but that's okay? And you make mistakes, but guess fucking what? She forgives you for them if you work hard at loving her and being happy for her?"

Rosalie waited a moment.

"Hm," she said, "that sounds … interesting. Unlike fucking yourself senseless and crying yourself to sleep every night, and waking up with salt on your cheeks so no matter what treatment you use, the acne on your face still tells everybody that everything's not as peachy keen as your fake chipper smile tries to portray."

I was silent.

"Or not," said Rosalie, disappointed, "because you're going to go right back to your writing and your job and your not going to say 'hi' to that next girl, because you're convinced you're that girl, that girl that breaks hearts and wrecks relationships, even before you say the first hello. That's why you run away and vomit, isn't it, because you see yourself as a failure going into a failed relationship even before it starts, don't you?"

"Rosalie," I gasped, "it's hard."

"Oh, boo-hoo!" Rosalie's scathing voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Poor me, Bella Swan! Life is so hard, I wanna die 'cause Edward left me!"

"That's not it," I countered, "I'm just not …"

"You're just not happy. So work on that. Bella did, and she got me. Win-win. Big time. But why? Because she finally got to be herself, because I let her be that, and not some 'Anne of Green Gables' Stepford wife, but, guess what? I finally got to be me, because she loves me for who I am. After a century of holding in the hurt and anger and hatred, I was able to let all that go; I got to be me."

"So you're saying for me to be happy, I have to be with another person?" I couldn't believe she was saying that.

"So you're saying you're happy being all alone, frigging then crying yourself to sleep?" Rosalie countered.

I was quiet.

"No, another person can't make you happy, but, _newsflash,_ this? This now? Not happy, Melissa." Rosalie scolded me, not so very gently. "What you need is to get happy, and then have somebody help you stay there. You know the safe word, but what you need to do is give her a stupid word."

"'Stupid' word?" I asked.

"Yes, a word she says to you whenever you get stupid, so you're on time-out until she says you're allowed to speak again."

"But, then, Rosalie," I said reasonably, "I'd never get to say anything."

"Which would be bad because …?" I heard Rosalie's smile.

I exploded: _"What's the point of me being in a relationship if I'm always in the time-out corner? I may as well not be there!"_

"Or, as you're in the time-out corner, you're thinking how to get out of the time-out corner, and how to stay out, and when you're out, you're talking with her, and you make mistakes, and you go in time-out, and then you talk with her more, and make less mistakes … you know? Growth? In a relationship? With somebody working with you who cares for you and loves you? Instead of just rubbing one out and then beating yourself up for being such a lonesome loser? And which one sounds better again?"

Rosalie was silent for a moment. "Don't wait another century to realize that you can be happy and you can be yourself."

"Okay?" she demanded.

"Okay," I said meekly.

"Good," I heard the smile in her voice. "Now go be that."

It was quite for a moment.

"Do you know," Rosalie began, "how much your panels of psychiatrists charge your insurance company _not_ to tell you any of that?"

"Um, yes?" I wasn't actually sure of the dollar figure, but I knew it was a high one.

"So, …" Rosalie said thoughtfully, "I can work on bartered tender."

I smiled. _"And_ you're in your favorite position, huh?"

I heard the smile in her answer. "And you should know that."

I think we both knew what we were talking about, so I stopped beating around the bush.

"Fuck me, Rosalie." Then I added as an afterthought, "please, if you'd like."

"Oh, _I'd like,"_ Rosalie's voice whispered low and provocatively in my ear.

I felt her hand questing around the bed until she found what she was looking for. Then she lifted the blanket around me and scooted in.

Then she reached around my front. I lifted my leg for her.

And she inserted monty.

"Oh, God!" I whimpered in surprise.

"God, yes," she agreed, "I wish I could do that with Bella."

_"Uh!" _I grunted as she trust into me with monty on the front and her vulva on my rump, "so … _uh_ … why don't you?"

"Because, stupid, she, unlike you, has a little virgin kitty," Rosalie said with annoyance as she pumped me, "I can't have her bleeding while I'm losing what little control I have around her fucking her brains out."

"I don't have an elephant pussy, Rosa-_oof!"_ Rosalie's pumping became more insistent.

"No, you don't, sweetie, but you don't have a virgin kitty like Bella's, either."

"Well, I'll think of something soon," I said.

"You do that … and while you're thinking … cum!"

And she pressed into my backside.

And then she turned on monty, and monty got _bizzzzy._

_"FUCK!"_ I cried out, cumming.

_"Yessss!"_ Rosalie hissed, and I felt her spray against my backside.

…

"Bella's right," I said, "you _are_ an amazing lover, Rosalie."

"And just imagine, you could have that for real, every night, and wake up with your lover still there in bed with you, as you get ready to go to work, knowing you'd see her later that day. For real."

"Yeah," I said sadly.

"Yeah," she answered forcefully.

"Okay," I said again. "I'll tr-… that is I'll work on that." Rosalie hates it when Bella says she'll try.

"You'll 'work on that'?" she demanded.

"Yeah," I answered.

"How about you'll do that, instead of just working on it? Commit to something, and you don't 'work at it,' you _do_ it. Don't commit to something, and you'll 'work on it' for the rest of your life and die, working on something you'll never get or be."

"You are one tough customer, aren't you, Rosalie?" I demanded.

"The toughest," she asserted.

"Okay," I sighed. "So anything else beside sending Bella all the way to Heaven with monty?"

Rosalie was quiet again.

"'Anything'?" she asked.

"Well, yeah," I answered cautiously.

"You've read _Breaking Dawn?"_ she asked.

"Yeah …" I said, doubly cautiously.

"Then you know what I want," she said.

"Um, Bella to have a child by Edward and be a vampire?" I asked.

Well, Rosalie was happy with Renesmee in _BD,_ no doubt about that, but I didn't see her giving Bella up to Edward, especially how things turned out for all parties involved.

"No," Rosalie said, "I don't see Edward and Bella doing that now that we're …" but then she stopped, she was always so shy about saying she and Bella are together, because she's so scared of being domineering to Bella like Edward was.

"I don't see that either, Rosalie, so I'm confused."

"That girl was right. In her review? You know the one? The one who read the story in class and nearly got caught with wet panties and said those things about me? That's what I want."

"Wait." I said. "Okay. You want Bella to have _your_ child?"

"Yes," she answered firmly.

"Rosalie …" I said carefully, "okay, we know that vampires can impregnate girls, but … okay, you're a girl. That's impossible."

Rosalie was quiet. Then: "No, it's not."

"Um." I said.

"You read Summer and Hatz, or 'Moon Over June,'" Rosalie said.

"But they were turkey baster pregnancies, Rosalie, they didn't get each other pregnant with their sperm, … as they don't have any."

"But," Rosalie was undeterred, "what about the research the nurse discussed with Summer about girl-girl conception. _And_ you've read the research papers about that, too, so you know that it _is_ possible."

"But you need stem cells from bone marrow, Rosalie, you have neither stem cells nor bone marrow." If she had bone marrow, she wouldn't need to go out to drink blood. She definitely didn't have bone marrow.

"But I do have DNA," Rosalie countered.

"And …?" I said, still not getting it.

"And …" Rosalie said, "there are smart people who know how to go from there."

"Smart people like who?" I asked. But then I instantly regretted my question at Rosalie's shoulders shrug.

"Oh, fuck!" I shouted. "Oh, fucking great! It's always him, isn't it? _He_ always … _FUCK!"_

"What is your problem?" Rosalie demanded angrily.

"I don't have a fucking problem with _anything!"_ I retorted.

"Oh, really?" She asked skeptically.

"Yes, really!"

"Okay, Miss I-don't-have-a-problem-with-a-certain-big-brother," Rosalie said sarcastically, "say it so that I believe it."

I fumed, but then I exploded: "Why does he get to be the goddam water-walker all the time? Oh, have a problem with a plot element? _geophf to the rescue, free of charge, just read it in my msr/rlt because I already thought of everything unlike you, li'l sis._ Why does he get to think up everything? Why does he get the perfect life with the perfect wife with the perfect stories and the perfect … _everything!"_

"Yet, it isn't like that, is it?" she probed.

_"That's what I'm saying!_ He's all fucked up, and I mean, seriously! He has this perfect everything and a loving family, but who fucking has to talk him down from his ledges and high horses? But who gets all the credit and all the love and all the everything while little sis follows along behind having to swallow all that _bullshit!_ _'Oh, Melissa, isn't your brother so wonderful? And have such beautiful children? When are you going settle down and start a family? What have you done? Oh, you're a Starbucks barista? And he's a philosopher? Saving lives? And you serve coffee? Well, that's, um, an interesting use of all that money your dad spent on your college education …'"_ I was panting heavily, and then I screamed: _"FUCK!"_

I could feel Rosalie regarding me in silence.

Then she spoke quietly. "Yes, he is all fucked up; as you well know. _Hm, _I wonder who that sounds familiar to …? But, that aside, who is the only person in your entire family, besides your mom that accepts you unequivocally? And that means who in the whole world? That is to say, a real person, not safe, harmless, kept at a safe distance, and therefore helpless internet friends? Not knocking them, but do they have to put up with your shit every second of every day? What I mean is a person _right there_ who tells you all the time how good your writing is, who tells you to publish your stories, who goads you forward, who accepts your lifestyle choices even though his religion was having you burnt at the stake a century or so ago?"

"Yeah, yeah, he's so wonderful …" I began.

"Yeah, yeah," she retorted coldly, "and you're pushing him away, him, your champion, because you're afraid that he'll desert you just like your dad did when you really needed him in your life, just like you need your brother right now. Well, guess what? He needs you, too, you ever think of that? And your snide little side comments to him in your end notes? You think it's all ha-ha funny, those little zingers you put in there? Knowing how sensitive he is? Knowing how they will break his heart?"

"Who the fuck is writing this one-shot, Rosalie?" I demanded. "Me or bb, for God's sake?"

"I don't know," she answered seriously. "Who is?"

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I'm writing it, but you're prosing on as if he is!"

"Because maybe he is."

"… Okay, _what?"_ I demanded.

"Maybe you're writing this piece like you do everything else, _li'l sis,_ trying to upstage bb, one-up him, so that maybe somebody will notice you, so that maybe somebody will love you, because you sure showed up bb, didn't you? You're better than him, because you write better than him, even though he's happy to admit, _no,_ happy to encourage you by saying that himself, and your life is more fucked up than his or because your life is less fucked up than his, depending on the sympathy angle. Maybe you're trying to out-write bb by writing _as _bb, but better, just to show him, just to show the world."

"God fucking dammit, Rosalie," I cried, fresh tears falling, "this is _not_ helping me, I thought you were all for the new happy me!"

"You can't be the 'new happy' you when you hold onto your old angry hang-ups, Melissa," Rosalie said quietly.

"It's not a hang-up!" I said, but Rosalie snorted angrily. "Look, he's got _'ooh! msr! I'm so great!' _I can't compete with that, and I can't talk to that. All I can do is quote his ideas because he's thought of everything, and he's written out all six books already, so I can't even say, 'well, you didn't think of that,' because he can show me where he did."

"So, he's got _msr,_ and that makes you angry."

"Yes! I mean, it's like that with everything, he's the great brain, and he's the …"

"… father with the dead daughter, and that's why he wrote msr, right?" Rosalie cut in. "So you want to beat him over the head with that or you want to tear msr out of his hands? Do you want the dead daughter, too?"

_"No!_ … but even there. Their whole family was like, mum! And then a blog entry? And then nothing? She was my niece, too!"

"Yes, she was, and you never got to know her, did you?"

"No!" I was really crying, again.

"And so you're hurting. Ever think the parents are hurting, too? Ever think, even as they are hurting, they are supporting you, too, especially your brother? Ever think how he'd feel if you complimented him, really, truly complimented him without the digs layered in those end notes, like you did sincerely one time? Ever think how _happy_ he'd be to offer help on a little thorny issue you have with some canonical metaphysics? He is a philosopher, after all. And then you could write the story with the resolution in mind already instead of running into a road block, as he appears to be in for, what? two months now? Ever think that?"

I was quiet.

She kissed my back lightly. "Think it over, okay?" she added.

I sighed as I cried. _I am such a shit. _"Okay," I said miserably.

"… And talk with him, you know, about maybe his story? Maybe he needs help, but being the big strong, dumb _pater familias_ that he is, he doesn't know how to ask for help? And so he's just busy, busy, busy, because if he stops, he'll have to face himself, and you know how scary that is for you. Maybe that's scary for him, too?"

"Yeah, …" I said sadly.

"So talk to your brother. Really talk to him. Get beyond his 'everything's fine' bullshit, and just talk to him, like in a park, with the cell phones off, for a while. And do that talk tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"But before you write another word for another story, you have write something much more important than any of that."

"What is that?" I asked.

Rosalie reached up to my headboard.

"Write Julia, and tell her what a shit you are, nothing more than that, she knows all the details already, and say you're sorry, and tell her the good things about her, and tell her how happy you are for her now, and put that in the mail, with your return address, email, and phone number in there, and get your life straight with her, and then get yourself a girl friend, for crying out loud, and give your 'fresh start' your stupid word before you even talk about your safe word, okay?"

"God, you are a mother hen, aren't you, Rosalie? How does Bella stand you?"

"I don't know the answer to that one, because I'm waiting for your 'yes' for my last one." Rosalie said without a trace of humor.

"Okay, okay, yes, I'll do it."

"Tomorrow." Rosalie said uncompromisingly.

"Tomorrow." I said, then I added: "Promise."

"Good girl," Rosalie said.

"You know, Bella hates that when you say that to her, too, you know."

"Uh-huh." Rosalie answered dismissively.

"Are you leaving me now?" I asked sadly.

"I have to get back to Bella before she wakes up," Rosalie responded.

"Will you sing me to sleep, though, please?" I begged.

"What do you want me to sing? We're not going to New York City together."

Yeah, but you and Bella are, aren't you, Miss Sly-itinerary-booker!

"How about that German lullaby you sang her?" I asked.

"You aren't German, she is. It won't help you sleep," Rosalie said.

"I'm Irish and Italian, do you know any of those kinds of songs?" I asked.

"How about 'Molly Malone'?" she asked.

"Oh, God!" I exclaimed, "yes, please!"

So she sang me the song:

_In Dublin's fair city,  
__where the girls are so pretty,  
__I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,  
__As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,  
__Through streets broad and narrow,  
__Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!'_

And I was asleep before she finished that verse, which made me very sad as I fell asleep: I so wanted to hear her sing the chorus in her angelic voice.

…

I woke. Alone. Monty was still fully inserted. I still grasped my pillow in my arms. I felt a tube of something squeezed in one hand, and I smelled vasoline. I looked at the tube: hydrocortisone cream? _Was it all a dream?_

I didn't know what answer I wanted.

I looked at my clock. 4:47.

_Shit!_

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

I am going to be _so lat-… _

Don't say that, don't think that. bb is always half-an-hour late. _Dad_ is always three hours late.

I'm never late.

I oh-so-carefully pulled out monty, _shhhhlicht! _(yuck!), and I got out of bed.

The wedding invitation plopped down on the floor next to my feet.

I looked down at it. Dream or no dream? No time for that. I put the invitation on top of my laptop and ran to the shower. I had, literally, less than 30 seconds to soap and rinse my stinky pits and tits and … you know, and that was it.

I sure didn't smell any 'mountain pine and spring water' nor did I smell any 'honeysuckle and rose.'

But I tingled all over, and my whole body felt like jelly.

I had been seriously fucked last night. Big time. For the first time in a _looong_ time.

No time to contemplate that thought, either.

I raced down to my Celica, and I broke every law of the land getting to the little corner shop that could.

Every-fucking-body was waiting by the front door. Partners, all: staff and customers.

I slammed into 'my' parking slot and sprinted to the front door.

Larry's cheerful voice greeted me as I _flew_ toward them all. "Hey, Violet, I though you were going to be lat-…"

_"I still have one minute!" _I shrieked as I pointed to my cellphone showing the time: 4:59.

"Whoa!" said Larry, chuckling at little girl me. He was, literately, a grey beard, and nothing rocked his good vibrations. Everybody piled in as I opened the front door.

…

"Grande decaf soy latte on the bar!" I bellowed.

"… Hey, Violet," said Dan, one of the regulars, as he picked up his drink.

"Hey," I said, looking at him quizzically.

"You look different …" Dan seemed shy, he quickly amended: "you look good."

You know how customers run away without running away? Yeah.

"Larry," I said, "cover me for two seconds?"

"Sure!" Larry said.

I ran to the ladies and looked.

My face wasn't completely cleared, but _whoa. That venom really is a balm._

I wonder if Rosalie could make her visits, you know, nightly.

I went back to the bar, probably blushing as hard as Bella.

…

Long day, no can say.

I looked down at my laptop.

There was the wedding invitation.

I opened it up.

I got out a pad of paper, and a pen.

_Dear Julia,_ I wrote.

I had to throw away that piece of paper, because it got really wet. It was, sort of, raining? inside my apartment?

Sheet #2.

_Dear Julia,_ I wrote again.

_Drip. Drop._

Well, fuck, there goes that sheet of paper.

I went to the bathroom and washed my face.

_Dear Julia, Hi. It's me, Melissa. Hey, I've really been a shit, and I'm really sorry about that, and … _

And drip-drop.

I sighed as I wadded up that paper and threw it at the can. Wow! A two-pointer. Yay.

I think it took 18 sheets of paper to get to my first draft. But I got there, eventually.

Okay, now, proof for the second draft. Here we go. _Don't overthink this._

…

I was driving to Tabu Thursday in Falls Church, when I realized I hadn't talked to bb.

_"Shit!"_ I screamed.

Call him now, or tomorrow?

_Fuck._ Call him now.

_Ring-ring._ "A____ residence, D___ A____ speaking, may I help you please?"

And you wonder where I get my dialogue for my stories, do you?

"Hey," I said, "it's me."

"Hey, li'l sis!" He cried pleased. _I hate that nick name._ "What's up?"

"Um," I said, "can we, um, talk about something, um, now?"

"Sure, what's up?" He asked easily, as if he were happy to be talking with me.

"Can I pick you up?" I asked shyly.

Silence.

"You're not going to strand me at a gay bar again?"

"Um, oh, shit! I'm so sorry about that, bb, I …" I began.

"Don't worry about it," he said, "It's just that you know how [his wife] gets, you know? And what? More than twenty women in a bar and me? Well, …"

"I am _so_ sorry," I repeated, but then I couldn't help grinning evilly, "… so, did you get hit on?"

There were more than a few girls who swung both ways. And a married man? Easy target for a girl who wanted a quickie with no strings attached. Or a lot of strings attached, depending.

"By [his wife]? No, that's how I could tell she was furious; you know? The silent treatment?"

My brother is such a nerd. He probably missed all the signals and left all those girls frustrated with a 'nobody could be _that_ oblivious' mood-killer. Well, actually yes, honey: my brother is.

"Um, yeah," I said helpfully. "Actually, I am going to a … well, a gay bar, but we could go somewhere, and then I could bring you back, and then I could go to the bar afterward."

"Why don't you just come here to talk?" he asked.

"Well, I'd end up playing with the kids the whole time, and that'd be great, but I really wanna talk with you, you know?"

"Hm," he said, "sounds serious. How about this, you tell me where, and I'll meet you there. Want to meet at Mike's?"

Two brothers. Two brothers who talk not in English, but in 'Star Trek,' and the original series, at that. Yeah, that would be fine … if we were going to play Halo all night.

I sighed. "No, bb, because it is serious. Rosalie and I had a … talk last night."

"Mike and I are serious," here I snorted, it was hard to remember each of my 'older' brothers had twenty years on me, and not the other way around, "… sometimes." He compromised, but then asked: "So how's Bella?"

Other people? When you tell them you're have a conversation with fictional characters, like, for real, they commit you to a mental institution. A____? They want to join the conversation.

I answered: "Rosalie kind of avoided talking about her. Look," I counter-suggested, "how about La Madeleine by Borders?"

I didn't want to eat, and he had probably eaten supper, but he played chess with his chess club buddies there sometimes, so I suppose we could converse over an iced tea.

"Sure," he answered businesslike, "see you there in a half an hour?"

"Your 'half an hour' or a half an hour by the clock?" I clarified.

"See you there at 9:30?" he tried again.

I mentally added the 'geophf factor' and adjusted that time to 10 pm, agreeing to that.

_And _I had to get a date at Tabu Thursdays.

It was going to be a _really_ long night.

…

As I drove off from La Madeleine, I reflected that that conversation went rather much better than I expected it to go. And he was even early for the appointment … for him. But when we talked, he was confused that there was even an issue at all. Like he thought my teasing was just cute younger sister teasing. Which it is …

… but it isn't.

So it was … an illuminating chat, for both of us.

And then he got really excited about looking up stem cell research for sperm production, even with the obstacles of vampires not having stem cells. bb loves a challenge, especially when you say it's 'impossible.' That just gets him _more_ raring to go.

So it was like my whole life, my whole worry about everything about us was like a bit, 'huh? well, anyway,' to him where he instantly forgot there was even an issue.

It didn't 'solve' all of my shit, but it sure made life easier knowing that he's the star child but not to hog the glory or to belittle me, but he's just …

… well, he's just a sap that way. But in a good way. I guess.

…

Tabu's was hopping. Hopping much too much for little me. I was a little fish in a very, very big shark-infested pond.

And I was woefully out of practice. Three years out of practice, thank you for reminding me. No, six years, Julia and I were friends for three years first and so I'm six years out of practice.

I'm twenty-one, by the way. So that means I've _never_ done the bar scene.

And there she was. At the bar. _Her._

You know … her? Miss Puke-inducer?

Go up and just say hello. Go up and just say hello.

I so want to puke.

I went up to the bar.

"H-hi," I breathed out. Then I winced. _Clever opener, dumbass._

If you could picture beautiful, but the exact opposite of Rosalie, you could picture who was looking at me speculatively.

"Hi," she said easily and smiled.

I think I may have peed a little bit at her smile. I felt it down to my toes.

And how she was dressed? A dress/cloak/robe something made of tans and browns that perfectly complimented her jet black hair and chocolate-colored skin? No jewelry, at all, and very subtle make-up except for the lipstick that you could tell was lipstick but that was all, it just looked so natural, making her lips ruby red.

Like Rosalie's but these lips were alive lips, not marbled lips.

I felt outclassed, just by standing near her.

"I'm Melissa," I tried.

"Melanie," she answered.

"That's so neat," I answered excitedly, warming to her, "because Melanie means …"

But then I stopped. This was D.C. and the color line was sometimes very, very strongly felt. Telling a girl who happens to be a dark sinned that her name means 'dark skinned' …?

"… um, sorry." I finished weakly.

_Shit, shit, and fucking shit, shit!_

"Why are you sorry?" she demanded, a frown creasing her forehead.

She had an accent I couldn't place, and an otherworldly elegance.

And I had so blown it, hadn't I, smart girl Mensan that I am.

"It doesn't look like it bothers you that I'm black, does it?" she prompted.

"No," I said weakly.

"And I don't mind that you're white, are you okay with that, too?" she asked.

I didn't know if she meant if _she _was okay that I'm white or if _I_ was okay with that, but I decided not to overanalyze things.

"Yeah, that's okay," I answered simply.

"So the problem is …?" she asked.

I swallowed. "I didn't want to point it out, is all."

"Well, it's there to be pointed out; hiding that fact only causes so many problems, don't you think? That's why there's so many problems here, because people try to ignore what is and treat everybody the same, where in fact everybody's different. Ignoring that difference is an insult, I think."

"Um, okay …" I said weakly.

"'Um, okay'? What does that mean?" she demanded, looking at me critically.

I swallowed again. And thought for a moment.

If I wanted to go with this girl, I can't hide behind what I think she wants me to be, right? Because then _I_ wouldn't be going with her, I would be always thinking _who I should be_ to go with her, and that's just too much work for me. I already have too many complications in my life. Just being me, whoever the Hell that is, would slim down the number of balls I already have in the air.

I stiffened my body, and prepared my answer: "I think the opposite," I said firmly. "I think that treating people differently, based on their color, got this country in a whole lot of trouble from the get-go and things are still all off-kilter, even with our new President."

Oh, well, it was nice knowing her. For two seconds.

She snorted at me. "But I didn't say that at all. There's a huge difference in treating people fairly to treating people as if they are all the same thing. Discrimination is terrible, but I wasn't talking about that. You can't go to the Cherokees and have them sign a treaty as you would go to the French, they have entirely different modes of being. A treaty for one was just a meaningless piece of paper and for the other culture was legal and binding. And until you get that difference, and treat each culture, and the peoples of those cultures, appropriately and with respect you have the Louisiana Purchase on one hand and the Trail of Tears on the other."

I grimaced. "Don't I know it," I said regretfully, "my brother … well, you know, my 'brother,' is part Choctaw, and actually the U.S. Government did that to their tribe first before they did it to all the other ones."

"Well, there you go then, you know," she looked pleased. "So, then, what's wrong with saying that my name means who I am? I hope your name means who you are to, right, little honey bee? Are you as sweet as your name says?"

I gasped. "How do you know that?"

She smiled and shrugged. "The classics were compulsory. My father read both Homer and Ovid out to us. Education was very important in our family."

I gasped again. "My dad did that too, except he read it in the original language."

Melanie smiled at me: "Μήτ᾽ ἔμοι μέλι μήτε μέλισσα."

"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed, but then cringed when other people looked toward us, even with the loud music. I continued much more quietly, but just as intensely, "You know Sappho? And my poem, too?"

"Well," she said, "I'm glad you recognized 'your' poem. Do you have one to quote for me?"

I never, in my life, thought I would be having a conversation like this at a bar where I was 'cruising for chicks,' as they say. But this girl wasn't a 'chick' by any stretch, and this was, after all, Washington D.C. She could be a congresswoman for all I know.

A very well-educated congresswoman.

"Well," I said, "I'm sort of writing a story based on this one: 'Ἄνθἐ ἀμέργουσαν παῖδ᾽ ἄγαν ἀπαλάν.'"

She smiled faintly at me. "Hm, that's a very interesting pronunciation, but it is a pretty poem … evocative, as many of her poems are."

"What do you mean by 'interesting pronunciation'?" I asked in confusion.

"Well, I find the American accent amusing," she said lightly.

"… as opposed to?" I continued, curious.

"Well, I grew up in Nigeria, so we have more of a British way of saying things, you know."

"Oh," I said, "how interesting!"

"Interesting how? And what's interesting?" she demanded. "The British colonization or the sectarian violence and political upheavals?"

I felt cornered.

"Look," I said weakly, "I'm sorry, but I'm way out of practice here, and I'm really lost, so I'm really screwing this up, so …"

She paused, looking thoughtful. "Do you need help?"

"Yes, please," I said humbly, and added mentally: _all I can get._

"So, okay, then," she collected herself. "The way this works is you come up and say hi and give your name — you did fine there — and you ask what I do, and then you move onto interests, looking for some common ground, okay? So you want to try that?"

"Okay," I said, "So, um, Melanie, what do you do?"

"I work at the IMF …" she said, looking at me expectantly.

"Um, what does 'IMF' mean?"

Melanie blinked. "It means 'International Monetary Fund,' and I'm working with the IMF to foster economic development in my country, particularly for fostering entrepreneurship of women-owned businesses, but that one is more like my personal vocation on and off the job, primarily I'm working for all of Nigeria."

I swallowed. "Oh," I said weakly.

"And you," she asked politely, "what do you do?"

I blushed. "I'm, uh, I'm a barista at Starbucks outside of D.C. … but I want to be a 'coffee master,' so I'm on a six-month training course for that?"

I looked at her, looking at me, with a polite, puzzled look on her face, and I suddenly realized how very common and unremarkable my whole existence was compared to Melanie's.

"Oh," she said neutrally.

"So, …" she said slowly, thoughtfully.

And I finished her thought for her: _so, how can I get rid of you and talk to somebody doing something with her life._

I dropped my eyes to the floor.

"… do you want to go somewhere and fuck?" she completed her thought.

Okay. I must have heard her wrong.

I looked back up to her. "I'm sorry," I said, "I don't think I heard what you said. Did you just ask me if you … if we … should …?"

"Go somewhere and fuck? Yes. My place or yours, or did you want to rent a hotel room? Some people go off to the bathroom, but, really, please! How utterly disagreeable is that?"

"Um," I tried unsuccessfully to keep up. "Um, don't we … aren't we supposed to get to know each other better first?"

She looked at me quizzically. "I work at the IMF, you're a Starbucks barista. What's to know better?"

"Well," I stuttered, "I kind of want to have a relationship with a person, you know …"

She smiled, "Sure, but let's find out if the mechanics work first, otherwise, what's the point?"

"Wow!" I said flabbergasted. "Is this how they do things these days?"

Melanie shrugged easily. "Well, I thought there was some attraction there, and you do look really cute to me, so I wouldn't mind, you know, a really good, hard, fuck tonight, and you look like a really sweet girl, and I'd really like to take you and just … _hm, yes! … _so …"

She smiled, leaving the rest unsaid.

"Um," I gulped, "a couple of things?"

"Okay, you little nervous thing, yes?"

"What about, you know, tomorrow, and the next day, and … you know?"

"Oh, you're a planner," she rolled her eyes. "Okay, well, we'll take tomorrow as it comes. I'm not adverse to going longer than tonight, much longer, if you don't turn out to be a total jerk, which you don't look like, but if you are, I don't have a problem moving on, either. In fact, I'd like that, snuggling with my sweetie, instead of cruising the bars for a quick fuck, but I also don't want to be stuck with bed death after the first week."

I was just so unused to this frank and direct way of speaking. I mean, with Julia …

But I wasn't with Julia anymore, just like Bella wasn't with Edward anymore, so I should just drop the comparison now, before it poisoned this or future relationships.

"Okay," I said, trying to go along with this 'scene,' "but that leads to the other thing. I'm on top."

Melanie looked at me and smiled dangerously. "Oh, you're on 'top,' are you? Hm, this will be very, very interesting then." Her smiled widened as she sized me up. _"Very_ interesting."

It appeared that Melanie thought she could take me. So, yes, this would be _very interesting._

I smiled back. "Yes, indeed," I said pleased.

"So," she said, "your place or mine?"

I think monty was still on my bed. Ick.

"Can we go to yours?" I asked.

"Sure," she said easily. "I'll give you directions."

"Oh," I said, "one more thing; I have to wake up between 4 am and 4:30 to get to work."

"Oh, I get up early to work out, too. Around 5 am, so I just won't tire you out too much tonight, right, honey bee?" She smiled wickedly, eying me hungrily.

"And I'll try not to exhaust you _too much_ either, Melanie. I hope you like … well, we'll save that for the bedroom."

Her smile widened. "Let's get going, I'm getting excited."

She gave me directions.

Girls, she lives at the Watergate complex in downtown D.C. Right next to the Kennedy Center.

Needless to say, this evening? Well, sorry, darlings, I'm not going to kiss and tell, especially since I have no idea how it's actually going to turn out, but I think you can see that it's going to be very different than yesterday's fare. That is, I think my life as a girl wasting her life alone on her bed with her monty has taken a rather sudden turn into the unexpected and unknown.

You know, living life? Negotiating it with another person, instead of just staring out at it all happening, sad and alone?

So I have no idea what happens next, but I know this … it's finally going to be interesting again, and I'm finally going to wake up not knowing what the Hell Melanie will or won't do.

So, if you all will excuse me, I have a new adventure to embark on.

And, yes, I will update my stories, and _no, no, no, _Melanie will _definitely not_ be in them, thank you for not showing pervy interest in her (so _not) _cameos in my other stories.

I had a nice, neat ending where I sent off my letter to Julia, and that was the cathartic moment, but then life, in the form of Melanie, kind of altered that ending to this untidy, chaotic one.

So if you'll excuse me while I experience Melanie … that is, life …

* * *

[1] I couldn't not write this story. But should I have not published it? Tell me if I should pull it.

[2] Samantha and Chris mentioned here are introduced first in ch 3 ("Samantha the Panther") of my story "The Bells are Ringing" and then in ch 7 ("Sweet Little Thing"). I wrote a story about them as my homework assignment called "Prowling Panther."

[3] Just because some people who are now lesbians have had a bad experience with boys doesn't mean all lesbians are lesbians because of some disfunction in their earlier life. I know plenty of lesbians who are lesbians just because they like girls more, or only, without prior bad experiences with boys, so don't go there, even as this story provides an example of a girl who chooses to be a lesbian because of an unhappy situation with boys in the past.

[4] Rosalie mentions the character Paige Morgan introduced in ch 2 ("The Phone Call") of my story "Christmas Surprises"

[5] Rosalie drinks Bella's tears then says 'so sad' and then fucks her and kills her in bb's msr, ch 37 ("This will Hurt II: King Midas"), or, instead of that tickles her (and doesn't fuck her and kill her) in msr, ch 43 ("Tickle, Tickle!"). The latter starts a long conversations about their moms and babies, but nothing at all comes out about the L-word (l.o.v.e.).

[6] The term 'soixante-neuf' means 69 and was the term in Rosalie's day to describe what … well, you know what it describes.

[7] I discuss the 'safe word' in the self-same titled chapter 2 of my story "The Bells are Ringing."

[8] Rosalie refers to her relationship with Bella in the story "Rose Read" by Jocelyn Torrent, which is the proper (*ahem*) canonical follow-up to _Eclipse. _But then again, without _Breaking Dawn,_ we wouldn't have had the canonical opportunity for dhampirs, that may or may not show up in the "Rose Read" canon stories I'm working on.

[9] The _Stepford Wives_. Good book, I'm told. Haven't read it. Not gonna. They were in Connecticut. Yeah. Like the State where I grew up in.

[10] 'Moon Over June' is a web-comic I discuss on my profile. Synopsis? Who cares! Read it.

[11] 'Turkey baster' pregnancy is a term for artificial insemination sometimes administered during sexual intercourse between lesbians.

[12] Rosalie sings Bella to sleep in bb's msr, ch 51 ("Take Me") with the famous lullaby "Wiegenlied" with the evocative starter: "Guten Abend, gute Nacht, mitt Rosen bedacht." Yeah, 'Rosen' means what you think it means.

[13] A dear reader suggested I try out hydrocortisone cream, so it was either that or Rosalie's venom that cleared me up the next day. I meant: 'Melissa in this story,' because I'm writing the story, right? I'm not actually in the story doing those things with Rosalie, and stuff. *sigh* Or not. La-di-dah.

[14] There is a Melissa called Violet who works as a sbux barista in my story "Memories." No, she's not Mary Sue, either.

[15] None of the views expressed here represent or are implied to represent the views of Starbucks. Nor are they expressing nor not expressing the views of Starbucks. There be that great big coffee giant, and here be tiny little old (or young) authoress me. I speak for nobody but myself, because I just so happen to be myself.

[16] Μήτ᾽ ἔμοι μέλι μήτε μέλισσα: 'Not the honey, not the bee, for me.' (my translation) Melissa (μέλισσα) means 'honey bee' in Ancient Aeolic Greek. Note the alliterative 'm's (μ).

[17] Ἄνθἐ ἀμέργουσαν παῖδ᾽ ἄγαν ἀπαλάν: 'A young maiden gathering flowers.' This poem inspired my story "Sappho's Muse." Note the alliterative 'a's (ἀ).

[18] Sappho rocked at alliteration, centuries before the idea occurred to anybody else. Millennia, in fact. She is the tenth Muse, after all. I know. Personally. 'Cause I asked her mom, Mνημοσύνη ('Memory,' the mother of the Muses; see my story "Memories").

[19] Yes, 'Melanie' really exists as a person working at IMF and the World Bank. There are such people on such missions, and knowing them? Very, very humbling.

[20] At the request of bb, I've removed his name and his family's from this story. I really shouldn't have put it in here in the first place, and I'm sorry about that. This is my confessional, not his.


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